Color devices, such as color monitors and color printers, are limited in the number of colors they can produce. The range of colors a given color device is capable of producing is known as that device's color gamut.
When a colored electronic document or image having colors contained within one color gamut, is reproduced on or displayed in a device having a different color gamut, color reproduction problems can occur. For example, some of the colors in a document created by selecting colors from the color gamut of a display monitor may not be available in the color gamut of a printer to which the document is sent to be printed. Similarly, a color represented as the color triplet (R1, G1, B1) on the color monitor, may be reproducible on a color printer, but from the color triplet (R2, G2, B2) rather than the triplet (R1, G1, B1).
Rendering intents are algorithms which have been developed to alleviate such color reproduction problems by suitably mapping colors from the color gamut of one device to the color gamut of another device. Four such rendering intents are commonly available, and are referred to as perceptual, saturation, absolute calorimetric, and relative colorimetric rendering intents. Other rendering intents are possible, however, and any algorithm which defines a transformation or mapping of colors from one color gamut to another color gamut is a rendering intent.
While rendering intents can alleviate color reproduction problems, they do not solve them. Thus a color which is within the color gamut of one device but outside the color gamut of another device cannot be faithfully reproduced on the second device, irrespective of the rendering intent chosen. Moreover, different rendering intents will produce different colors on the second device as they attempt to approximate the out of gamut color.
A user who is sensitive to the color content of a document or image will be sensitive to the various color approximations produced by different rendering intents as they transform colors from one color gamut to another. Such a user may want to compare the effects different rendering intents will have on the colors in their documents or images prior to selecting one of the intents to transform their documents. Currently, users may only compare the effects different rendering intents have on the colors in documents indirectly. For example, they can select a rendering intent, preview a rendered image, and then either accept the rendering intent or select an alternate rendering intent.
The current process is cumbersome, requires the user to anticipate whether a current rendering intent is better than one which has yet to be viewed, and also requires the user to remember large amounts of information such as subtle differences in color between different rendered images. A method is needed for selecting a desired rendering intent which is less cumbersome, does not require anticipating the quality of images which have yet to be viewed, and does not require the user to remember large amounts of subtle information.